Brad in Secret Files from the Working Men's College

This exhibition was curated by Stephen Gallagher for the RMIT Galleries for the Midsumma Festival, the largest queer festival in Victoria.. Artists selected for the exhibition included: [Anon}, Rhett D'Costa, Richard Harding, Kate Just, Spiros Panigirakis, Nikos Pantazopoulos, Drew Pettifer, Jon Riethmuller, Jonas Ropponen, David Sequeira, Glenn Walls. The exhibition included a brochure with an introductory essay by Stephen Gallagher.

Excerpt from the catalogue: 'Established in 1881 and opened in 1887 this college was the precursor to RMIT University, holding classes in technical, business and arts areas. Secret Files from the Working Men's College highlights some of the talent that over time has been fostered and released from the School at Art of RMIT University. Gallagher brings together artists who reflect on gay lifestyle through the subtle inclusion of queer content into their art practice."

The work produced for the curated exhibition builds on current dialogues relating to the 'other': in the context of this show, the 'other' being defined as 'queer'. The work deliberately antagonizes the unstable space between perceived heterosexual and homosexual positions and the languages, stereotypes and tropes which each group works between and across. 'Brad' is both a 'real' and 'fictitious' character working between these spaces and often falling between the secrecy, assumptions and innuendo described to him. Using the video artist Tacita Dean's structure for a show she curated called, 'An Aside', the work developed in a way which could not be predicted at its point of conception but rather built across various trajectories unfolding multiple narratives which, like the image of 'Brad' is open, suggestive and vulnerable.